August 22, 2008

If you're interested in presidential politics, the Civil War, or the changing face of America in the 19th century, you'll be screaming with enthusiasm next year as it's the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth (February 12th, to be exact). The Smithsonian is putting on an impressive show for this important and introspective moment in American history. At least 12 of the Smithsonian's museums/departments are promoting Lincoln-related events and exhibitions. The National Museum of American History, the National Postal Museum, Smithsonian magazine, the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, even the National Zoo will offer special programming.

That's great, of course, if you're coming to Washington next year, but what about the rest of us? Will middle America, the true land of Lincoln, be deprived of this delectable intellectual candy? Not if SITES can help it. We're teaming with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum in Springfield, Illinois, and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery to spread the historical word.

Lincoln's Presidential Library has created a traveling exhibition (literally) inside a 53-foot-long, double-expansion trailer that narrates the 16th president's life story through a mixture of interactives, facsimile documents, graphics, and real artifacts. To supplement the truck tour and to help teachers back in their classrooms, SITES is producing a commemorative portfolio of text and images based on the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition One Life: The Mask of Lincoln.

Oh, and if you happen to be in Denver for the Democratic National Convention or in Minneapolis | Saint Paul for the Republican National Convention, you can pick up a handsome Lincoln bookmark to remind you of the Smithsonian's upcoming Lincoln events.

August 15, 2008

At the National Air and Space Museum, just upstairs from the bold black-and-white missiles, sounding rockets, and launch vehicles, is a quiet little preview of some fairly amazing works of art. Of course, these pieces could easily be missed among the colossal machines suspended from the ceiling, but the group of seven works by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Annie Leibovitz, and Normal Rockwell is worth a side step off the bustling main corridor.

The collection represents a small sampling from the new SITES exhibition NASA | ART: 50 Years of Exploration.In 1962, NASA (just a few years young at that stage) invited artists to document and interpret the accomplishments, set backs, and sheer excitement of stellar exploration. In those days, the space program was all new and tapped into the infectious post-war belief that anything was possible. Frankly, it still exudes that kind of energy for me. Every time a new satellite, probe, or shuttle is propelled into space, I feel the chills ripple up my spine. Indeed, anything IS possible. What could be a more inspiring launch point for artists?

In oils, acrylics, watercolors, and everything in between, the works in NASA | ART reflect a marriage of science and art, technology and the natural world. Take James Dean's watercolor Shuttle Flowers, for example. It's a small, unassuming piece that shows the Space Shuttle Columbia at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Far in the background, the Shuttle is meticulously painted as is the surrounding launch equipment, but of equal visual importance is the field of wild white daisies in the foreground, a homage to the real-life wildlife refuge that encapsulates the space center. Showing the expressive faces of the Apollo 11 astronauts, their wives, the back-up crew, and scientists, Norman Rockwell's Behind Apollo II is also subtle yet evocative.

Other works, like James Cunningham's Imaging to the Edge of Space and Time, are louder and more boisterous, a celebration of color, light, and the essence of space itself. Whatever your favorite style, NASA | ART has something for you.

August 04, 2008

When was the last time you went to an exhibition that tolerated, no WELCOMED, toddlers? This group of underserved citizens isn't exactly the type that's likely to make a donation or start blogging about the merits of your museum. From an institution's point of view, toddlers and babies might just be the last frontier of constituent cultivation. As the mother of an almost-two-year-old, I certainly understand why this is often the case, but maybe it shouldn't be. Kids this age are actually quite responsive, little sponges that they are, and more eager to learn than most adults who enter an exhibition with a preconceived notion about what makes a successful presentation and what ruins it. At age two, there's none of that. Any new information is good information--the gooey stuff that's likely to become lodged in the sticky corners of the brain.

My daughter's class recently had the pleasure of visiting Jim Henson's Fantastic World (organized by SITES), now on display at the Smithsonian's International Gallery in Washington, D.C. It was a joy to see the youngsters sit on their hands and knees in front of the cases and shout (in outside voices, mind you), "Look! Bert, Ernie!" Seeing Kermit in person was especially exciting for some, but even for those who didn't know Kermit, they were still able to identify him as a happy, green frog. These are big concepts for toddlers, who are everyday striving to make sense and verbally describe the landscapes around them. In Henson's world--as in the exhibition--colors are big and bold; art is imaginative and fresh and as much about "process" as about the finished product itself.

For the kids, the most engaging part of the exhibition was surely the Resource Room, a hands-on and "Hensonesque" space replete with colorful picture books to flip through and story boards to design. A full-scale puppet theater and a heaping basket of puppets inspired them all as they ran around exchanging Big Bird puppets for Elmos, making each babble in its own hilarious voice. Felt faces, mounted low to the ground, were another crowning jewel of the Resource Room. Kids could rummage through a variety of Velcro noses, crazy mouths, furry mustaches, and big ears to create perfectly silly faces (I had to force my child to leave this station). Floppy bean-bag chairs, in every color imaginable, rounded out the experience for the toddlers. When the kids were all bouncing on the chairs--each with a big, toothy grin on his or her face--I realized that somebody understood the need to entertain and educate the youngest of audiences. And when kids are happy, you guessed it, parents are even happier.